Our young participants have been learning how to make their own podcast with Chelmsford Community Radio and writer/educator Emma Kittle-Pey.

The first of the monthly podcasts is now live. From an interview about the writing process with Isla who has written her own YA novel, to a discussion on the use of AI, their seasonal reads or thought on book to film adaptations, these bookworms are going to keep us thoroughly entertained!

Listen at mixcloud.com/chelmsfordcr.

This project is supported by Essex County Council’s Cultural Development Project Fund.

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What if your anger just simmers underneath? If it never quite reaches boiling point, but it’s present, burning your insides.

Combining spoken word, football chants, live art and theatre, Chat Sh*t, Get Hit dives into women’s anger: how it fuels, how it festers and how it is swallowed. Following its award-winning Edinburgh Fringe run and a stint at Soho Theatre, this is a funny and uncompromising show about recovery, solidarity and the suppression of women’s rage.

Tickets Pay what you can afford
Doors 7.30 pm, show 8pm
This show is for a seated audience
Age Guidance 16+

Chat Sh*t, Get Hit

WINNER: Best Spoken Word & Storytelling Show – What The Fringe 2025

★★★★ ‘Funny, razor-sharp and precisely judged’ – The Scotsman

★★★★ ‘A tour de force of female rage & vulnerability’ – A Young(ish) Perspective

★★★★ ‘Dynamic and unpredictable…a rousing interrogation of female rage’ – Fest

★★★★★ ‘Totally glorious, completely justified and undeniably necessary’ – Corr Blimey

Find out more and book tickets at colchesterartscentre.ticketsolve.

The post Wonderful Wednesdays – Martha Pailing: Chat Sh*t, Get Hit coming to Colchester Arts Centre appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

These emails are targeting writers and authors, inviting them to take part in the festival. Often they request a registration fee payment. We do not request a registration fee to appear in the festival.

If you are in any doubt please do not respond to any suspicious emails.

For details of our correct contact email addresses please visit our contact page.

The post Beware of email scams appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

We are looking for a Festival Coordinator to join our small team that runs the festival year-round.

The successful candidate will work closely with the Festival Director to ensure all elements of the festival are in place on time and within budget.

Role Details

Job title: Festival Coordinator (part time)
Responsible to: Festival Director
Location: Centre for Creative Writing, University of Essex, Colchester, Essex
Salary: £29,040.00 pa (pro rata £17,424.00)
Contract: Freelance, Initial 1-Year Contract, thereafter reviewed annually, three days per week with seasonal adjustment related to the festival period.
Hybrid: Split between working from home and in the office based at University of Essex, Colchester

Application deadline: Friday 16 October (midnight)
Interviews: Week beginning 26 October

About Us

Essex Book Festival takes place every June. It is the only festival of its kind to take place over a one-month period hosted in over forty venues across one of the UK’s largest and most diverse counties. The festival is an independent charity based within the Centre for Creative Writing at the University of Essex. It collaborates with a wide range of local, regional, national and international organisations to fulfil its objectives.

Essex Book Festival has grown over the last ten years in terms of its audience reach and the breadth of its programming, now also running projects outside of the main June festival month. Its key aims are to explore innovative ways of igniting people’s passion for the ‘book’ in all its forms; to nurture and showcase writers and artists at all levels of their careers; to push the boundaries of what a book festival can do; and in so doing, to create a meaningful legacy for Essex.

The Role

As part of the small team that runs the festival year-round, the Festival Coordinator will work closely with the Festival Director to ensure that all elements of the festival are in place on time and within budget. The role is varied with a focus on logistics and delivery.

Key responsibilities include:
⭐ Event management, i.e. liaising with writers/artists, publishers, venues, partners and volunteers; attending and overseeing events
⭐ Managing all marketing activity including the printed festival brochure, updates to website essexbookfestival.org.uk/ and social media
⭐ Budget management and finance monitoring
⭐ Management of box office and online ticketing platforms
⭐ Recruiting and managing volunteers
⭐Festival evaluation, reports for board and for funders

Person Specification

We are looking for the following knowledge, experience and qualities:
📚 Passion for books and the wider arts
📚 Experience of working in arts/festival environment
📚 Confident and wide-ranging IT skills: knowledge of MS Office including Word and Excel.
📚 Experience of using a variety of digital tools such as Mailchimp, WordPress, Eventbrite, Zoom, SurveyMonkey and Canva
📚 Ability to work to deadlines, and balance multiple and competing priorities
📚 Experience of working in a small team
📚 Experience of budget management
📚 Self-motivated, positive, and reliable
📚 Accuracy, efficiency and excellent attention to detail
📚 Have own car/access to a car
📚 Flexibility regarding working hours during festival period

To Apply

To apply please send a CV, details of two referees and a covering letter (no more than two pages) to [email protected] with Festival Coordinator in the subject line.

Please outline why you are applying for the role and, with reference to the description above, how you think your skills and experience fit the demands of the role.

Deadline for applications: Friday 16 October (midnight)
Interviews will be held week beginning 26 October at the Centre for Creative Writing, University of Essex, Colchester, Essex, CO4 3SQ

⬇️ Download a pdf of the Essex Book Festival Coordinator Job Description here.

The post New Opportunity: Festival Coordinator appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Sundream – a new play set in Jaywick and Clacton

Two hot summers 50 years apart. Lifelong Jaywick resident Jackie needs the sea breeze, while newcomer Dave takes “seeing the sunny side” to new extremes! Will she capture the spirit of her youth and triumph over cynicism? Will she finally learn to walk in platform shoes? Will she ever get ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ out of her head?

Event 1
Friday 18th September: 10.30am – 11.30am
Harwich Library

Event 2
Friday 18th September: 2pm – 3pm
Frinton Library

Event 3
Friday 18th September: 5.30pm – 6pm
The Nose Bookshop (part of Walton Art Festival), Walton

Event 4:
Tuesday 22nd September: 11am – 12noon
West Clacton Library

You can book free tickets on Wise Ram Theatre’s website https://www.wiseramtheatre.co.uk/event-list or RSVP by emailing: [email protected].

This project is supported by Arts Council England.

Please note: These are work-in-progress performances and actors will be performing with a script in hand.

Age: Suitable for 12+

There are also a series of 6 community wellbeing workshops for adults in Tendring – Find out more about Green Creative Connections Tendring.

The post Free Events in Tendring – Sundream work-in-progress performances appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Essex Book Festival is unique. It is the only festival of its kind to take place over a one-month period, hosted by over thirty five venues, across one of the UK’s largest and most diverse counties.

We pride ourselves on delivering a broad programme of events including author talks, conversations, guided walks, workshops, panel discussions, family activities, writing surgeries, performances, talk & taste events, live podcasts, exhibitions, writing residences and book club events.

So whether you are an established writer or emerging artist we would like to hear from you.

If you are interested in taking part in Essex Book Festival 2027 please complete our submission form by Friday 11 December.

Due to the large number of submissions, only successful applicants will be contacted. If you have not heard back from us within 4 weeks following the closing date, please assume that your submission was unsuccessful.

The post Author submissions for Essex Book Festival 2027 now open appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Nominations for The Queen‘s Reading Room Medal 2027 are now open.

The Queen’s Reading Room, launched by Her Majesty Queen Camilla in 2023, is a charity working to celebrate and promote the power and benefits of reading. Their Medal celebrates individuals in their communities who are champions of books and literature, and who help others to make room for reading and storytelling in their lives.

The Medalist will have made a demonstrable impact on the people they serve: improving literacy, transforming non-readers into readers, or helping to improve wellbeing by connecting people with other book lovers, and connecting people through stories.

Volunteering and the power of voluntary work is celebrated by this award. Candidates may have formalised their work around reading into a charitable organisation or programme, but it will have begun as voluntary work.

Nominees could be an individual working in the publishing industry, library or other grassroots service, an author, bookseller, or literary festival volunteer, but the quality which makes them outstanding is their commitment to going above and beyond to spread the joy of storytelling.

Nominations may be made by the person themselves or by others and submitted online via the web form: https://thequeensreadingroom.co.uk/nomination/.

The medal nominee must:

Be aged 18 or over
Have conducted their reading activity in the UK
Have conducted some of their activity in the period March 2025-October 2026, and/or, if they are being nominated for activity prior to these years, be able to demonstrate lasting impact to the present day

To hear stories from this year’s finalists and winners, including how they have inspired others to make room for reading, what it means to be a reader and why volunteering is important, head to The Queen’s Reading Room Instagram and YouTube channels.

The post Nominations for The Queen’s Reading Room Medal 2027 are now open appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

An opportunity for young people to get involved in creating a new book podcast.

Are you aged 13-17 years and living in Essex?
Do you share a passion for books and podcasts?
Would you like to learn how to make your own podcast with a group of like-minded young people, and then broadcast it on Chelmsford Community Radio?

If you have answered “yes” to these three questions, then we have just the thing for you.

Essex Book Festival is teaming up with Chelmsford Community Radio on a new project, the Essex Book Worm Podcast, supported by Essex County Council’s Cultural Development Project Fund.

We are looking for 12 young people to devise, shape and present a new monthly 20-minute podcast talking all things books, including interviews with local authors/scriptwriters/poets, book reviews, quizzes.

Participants will learn how to create content, including vox pops, how to conduct an interview, how to edit and shape material, and finally, how to record a podcast for broadcast.

Still interested?

We are hosting two free training sessions on Saturday 19 and Saturday 26 September (10am-4pm) at Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford, so we will be ready for our first broadcast in October. These sessions will be led by award-winning radio producer Michelle Durant from Chelmsford Community Radio, and writer/educator Emma Kittle-Pey.

If you would like to book you place, and / or find out more, please email [email protected].

Listen to the Essex Book Worm Podcast here.

This project is supported by Essex County Council’s Cultural Development Project Fund.

The post The Essex Book Worm Podcast appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Capturing the key ideas from the events, Chris sketched and drew thoughout the day turning each of the sessions into a stunning, vivid, colourful visual summary.

Here are the brilliant illustrations he created:

Downfall of the Templars by Tony McMahon

Mythica by Emily Hauser

The Traitors Circle

Follow Christopher Fenwick on Instagram @christopherfenwick and find out more at www.fenwickstudio.co.uk.

The post Live Illustration at The History Books Day appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Who can resist one of the UK’s leading historians Alison Weir talking about the Boleyn family at Essex Record Office on Tuesday night.

Having said that, just across the road at Chelmsford Library we have Sunday Times and international best-selling author Sarah Vaughan (whose previous novel Anatomy of a Scandal became an instant smash-hit Netflix series), talking about her latest suspense novel Based On A True Story.

It’s going to be hard to choose between those two. The excellent news is that everyone should be home in time for the kick off of England vs. Ghana!

Our final two library event include two more best-selling writers: Vaseem Khan at Colchester Library on Wednesday night and Sophie Hannah at Witham Library on Thursday night.

Vaseem will be taking a deep dive into the world of James Bond with his new series The Q Mysteries, which centre on Major Boothroyd (aka Q), the gadget-maker for M16’s 00 agents.

Sophie, meanwhile, will be marking the 50th Anniversary of the Dorothy L Sayers Society with a talk about the hugely-popular murder-mystery genre, her own books included. The excellent news here is that tickets are still available for both of those events.

We are spreading the net wide over our final weekend with events taking place at Gibberd Garden and Harlow Museum and Gardens in Harlow and Layer Marney Tower near Colchester.

Anyone who is interested in The Knights Templar is in for a huge treat at Layer Marney Tower.

TV presenter and writer Tony McMahon is opening our History Books day on Sunday with a talk about his latest book Downfall of The Templars. For centuries, people have wondered what happened to the fabled treasure of the Templars, including the Holy Grail. Join Tony to find out more.

Tony will be followed by a British scholar of classics and a historical fiction novelist Emily Hauser who has been on a quest of her own.

This time we will travel even further back in time to ancient Greece as Emily reveals the astonishing true story of the real women behind ancient Greece’s greatest legends – and the real heroes of those ancient epics, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

Wrapping up the day we have Radio 4 presenter and Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland talking about his latest book The Traitor’s Circle, which details the true story of the Solf Circle—a secret, high-society group of German intellectuals, aristocrats, and diplomats who secretly opposed Adolf Hitler and were betrayed from within.

Those with a passion for the visual arts have a treat in store at Gibberd Garden on Sunday with British painter and sculptor Maggi Hambling talking to art critic and novelist James Cahill about the new monograph Maggi Hambling which marks her 80th birthday.

Followed by fellow British artist and writer Darren Coffield talking about his biography of Henrietta Moraes, the muse of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, and final muse and lover of Maggi Hambling. Our first event with Maggi and James is already sold out but tickets are still available for Darren’s event.

Again, it is going to be difficult choosing between Layer Marney Tower and The Gibberd Garden!

Finally, if the festival has whet your appetite to get cracking on your own novel, book your place on Saturday morning at Harlow Museum for our final writing workshop of the festival, this time led by best-selling Essex author Syd Moore. Syd will also be talking about her own book The Great Deception at Harlow Museum later in the day.

Keep cool and hydrated. And, most importantly, keep reading…

The post The Final Week appeared first on Essex Book Festival.